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Social Movements: A Summary of What Works
Charles Dobson
What affects the success of reform movements? What do the civil liberties, feminist, environmental, gay rights, anti-nuke, gun control, don’t drink and drive, and living wage movements have in common? Since the 1960’s a small number of sociologists has been conducting research, trying to answer this question. Research-based theory on social movements complements the limited, often personal, perspective of activists and organizers because it looks at larger numbers of people, longer periods of time, and major shifts in popular attitudes.
At the time of this writing, little of this work has made its way out of universities. The following is an attempt to present in simple language the resource mobilization perspective of social movements. It summarizes and updates Doug McAdam’s, John D. McCarthy’s, and Mayer Zald’s detailed review article, Social Movements, published in the Handbook of Sociology, edited by Neil Smelser. (Their perspective is distinct from the new social movement perspective linked to European intellectuals like Jurgen Habermas, which focuses on symbolic production and cultural conflict, with an academic mix of philosophy, political theory, and dense intellectual discourse.)
The authors identify three factors critical to social movements: political opportunity, organizational capacity, and framing ability. They look at social movements as politics by other means, often the only means open to relatively powerless challenging groups. They argue for the constancy of discontent and emphasize the variability of resources in accounting for the emergence and development of insurgency. A reliable model of social change, they say, must be able to account for both micro and macro phenomena, and be able to explain not only the emergence but the maintenance and development of social movement organizations.
In more detail, here is what they have to say.
Favorable Pre-conditions
Individual psychology not so important Early work on social movements assumed that activism could be explained by examining the psychological motivations of individuals. A popular theory was that activism came from sensing a gap between what a person felt he or she was entitled to and what he or she, in fact received. According to resource mobilization adherents, empirical research shows individual predispositions are at best insufficient to account for participation in collective action.
Prosperity Prosperity affords the resources necessary for social movements. Other things being equal the most deprived seem unable to sustain more than momentary insurgency. This also holds true for local politics. Neighbourhoods of higher socio- economic status are much better than poorer neighbourhoods at getting concessions and services from local government.
Physical concentration Bringing people into closer proximity in cities, factories, university campuses helps increase the potential for social movement activity. The civil rights movement followed the mass migration of blacks from dispersed rural settlements to concentrated urban centres in the US South. Short-lived examples of physical concentration also foment social change. Conferences, for instance, often energize participants to pursue progressive change. Sports events, carnivals and rallies have less predictable outcomes.
Level of prior grassroots organization The prior existence of church groups, clubs, special interest organizations, teams and recreational groups, community groups, PTAs, veterans and educational organizations supports the development of social movements. The early stages of mobilization are difficult if most people lead purely private lives, and if grassroots groups have few members. Robert Putnam’s work in Italy shows how broad public participation and a healthy network of grassroots groups could expedite large regional government initiatives.
The absence of cross-cutting solidarities It is easier for a movement to grow in a population that is isolated or has weak ties to other groups in society. The feminist movement encountered a good deal of resistance from married women in the US, women who had a wide variety of social, and economic ties to men.
Suddenly imposed grievances, dramatic spotlighting Dramatic, highly publicized and often unexpected events can lead to public outrage and major shifts in certain public attitudes. Huge oil spills, nuclear accidents, revelations of serious government misconduct, official violence against dissenters, or the sudden loss of employment serve to foment social movement.
Solidarity instead of free-riding Many sociologists have argued that social movements are hampered by the tendency for people to do a quick cost-benefit analysis on their own participation. They argue the rational person will conclude the easiest course is to become a free rider since they will obtain the benefits of social action whether they participate or not. To address free rider absenteeism, smart activists emphasize solidarity, personal relationships, and the importance of individual commitment for success. This is much easier to do in an established organization.
The Ingredients of Micro-mobilization
Kindling in small groups The basic building block of social movements is the small informal group connected to a loose network. Sometimes this "micro-mobilization context" is a group of friends, sometimes a group of coworkers, sometimes a subgroup within a larger group like a church or a union. A well-known example is the four Greensboro A&T students who precipitated the 60’s black sit in movement after “bull-sessions” in one another’s dorm rooms. Margaret Mead was quite right: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
Familiar members Micro-mobilization contexts act as the staging ground for movements. Three resources affect the emergence of a movement: members, leaders, and an existing communications network. Research shows that new members appear along established lines of interaction. New members tend to know people who are already members. The more a person is integrated into an activist community, the more readily he or she will be willing to take part in protest activities.
A co-optable communications network The pattern, speed and spread of a movement depends on an existing co-optable communications network. The women’s liberation movement was able to make rapid progress in the 1960’s (where it had previously failed to do so) because of the prior arrival of just such a network. Overall, the greater the number and diversity of people actively participating in an network the more likely it will support a mobilization effort. The network may be informal and invisible, like those described in detail in Emanuel Rosen’s book, The Anatomy of Buzz. Rosen sees communications networks as useful for flogging products; activists see them as useful for spreading ideas. Activists could learn something from books on social networks and viral marketing. Because social movements seem to spread like other innovations, activists might also learn something from the literature on technical and cultural diffusion, and the role of early adopters.
Capable leaders Smart, honest, committed leaders are invaluable to a social movement. The literature on activism emphasizes the importance of leaders in generating a movement, and the importance of creating new leaders to keep it rolling. Particularly important is the articulate and charismatic leader who can elegantly articulate people’s concerns, and inspire an emotional response.
A Mobilizing frame Corporations and elites, aided by corporate media, preserve the status quo by linking problems to individual shortcomings. They blame the victim, promoting the demobilizing view that lung cancer results from consumer choice, unemployment from laziness, and family breakup from selfishness. A movement can build quickly
inside a homogenous and highly interactive group when people question the blame-the-victim frame and begin to see a problem deriving from not from flawed individuals, but from flawed public policy. Erving Goffman originated the term “frame” to refer to an interpretive scheme that people use to simplify and make sense of some aspect of the world. As a mobilizing frame becomes widely shared, the chances of collective action increase markedly.
Frame alignment Frame alignment describes what happens in small informal groups that promote social change. Movement supporters attempt to bring others around to a mobilizing frame by providing examples and rationales that legitimize the movement. If others buy the examples and rationale, they adjust their view of issues and events so they are aligned with the new mobilizing frame. According to David Snow and others, frame alignment includes frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension and frame transformation. Frame extension occurs when a social movement organization extends “the boundaries of its primary framework so as to encompass interests or points of view that are incidental to its primary objectives but of considerable salience to potential adherents. In effect, the movement is attempting to enlarge its adherent pool by portraying its objectives or activities as attending to and being congruent with the values and interests of potential adherents.”
Optimistic expectations Any given individual is more likely to participate in a project if he or she: Expects a large number of people to participate Expects his/her participation will contribute to success Expects success if many people participate. The relentless enthusiasm of the best grassroots animateurs inspires enthusiasm and optimism in others, even in the worst circumstances.
Movement maintenance
The need for social movement organizations Micro-mobilization spurs collective action, but informal groups of friends, ad-hoc committees, or loose associations of activists are not sufficient to develop or maintain a movement. This requires organization, and what are called social movement organizations or SMOs. Typically these “command posts of the movement” have an office, staff, volunteers and a board of directors
Role of the SMO The social movement organization needs to carve out a niche for itself in the larger environment of other organizations pursuing similar objectives, as well as develop productive relationships with media, funders, the media and government. Most important, each SMO must figure out a way to routinize a flow of people and
caused by smoking. In effect, government pays to be openly lobbied in the media, then responds when the public begins to see the need for government action. SMOs often try to exploit circumstances where different levels of government (federal, provincial/state, municipal), or different departments within the same government, wind up on different sides of the same issue. In the American civil rights movement, federal laws and lawsuits, clamped down on southern sheriffs and voting registrars. In one important move, the US president Eisenhower called out the National Guard to constrain Arkansas Governor Faubus in the Little Rock school desegregation crisis. Occasionally groups can use the courts to advance a social movement. Juries can impede authority by nullifying formal law. Juries repeatedly delivering not guilty verdicts for doctors accused of performing abortions, overthrowing the laws prohibiting abortion. The courts can also undercut the use of force by the police. Finally, court proceedings or semi-judicial hearings that capture media attention can develop public support for movement goals. Still, a judicial route may cost a lot of time and money even with a public interest advocate willing to take the case pro-bono. As a rule of thumb, the courts are good at preventing injustice, and poor at furthering progress.
Consciousness maintaining The broad adoption of a mobilizing frame and recognition of the value of individual contribution to collective action may be sufficient to generate collective action but not enough to maintain it. The demise of radical feminism in the US after the civil war, and after passage of the suffrage amendment shows how tenuous political consciousness can be. To succeed a movement must generate support from authorities, sympathy from bystanders and, most important, continue to be seen as legitimate and effective by movement members. This inevitably means an ongoing struggle with movement opponents to frame events and issues in a way that supports the movement. In their struggle for favorable public opinion, SMOs use various communications technologies to get their message out. They use the telephone to recruit potential members, reconnect to lapsed members, and generate action alerts though established telephone trees. They most often use direct mail to reinforce movement frames, acquire resources, and foment direct action. Because the effectiveness of direct mail fundraising improves dramatically with television exposure, some SMOs try to earn TV coverage, or obtain lower ad rates for public service announcements with depoliticized content. Organizations with minimal budgets prefer email listserves to direct mail. Maintaining consciousness on limited budget requires inventive communications. The most effective SMOs have top- notch communications professionals on staff.
On-going Frame alignment Sociologists take pains to point out that frame alignment only works as an ongoing process. According to David Snow and Robert Benford, SMOs must continue to strive for alignment and action through diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing. When confronted with a challenge, an SMO must diagnose the problem in
a way that resonates with members and potential members, propose a plausible solution that could be accomplished by movement participation, and issue a call to arms that motivates action. A successful SMO must also work hard to maintain the saliency of supportive frames while attacking, debunking, and ridiculing counter frames. Defensive measures usually extend to polarized us-versus-them framing and may go further to framing opponents actions as corrupt, dishonest or evil. Loss of alignment is a constant threat in the presence of counter movements and the counter fames of opponents.
Frames from the news Most people acquire their information and orientation to the world from the impersonal mass media. With it they acquire stock frames and frame-making ideologies. What they come to see as their own opinions for or against a social movement are actually news constructed. Right wing ideology is both news constructed and heavily promoted by the corporate owners of the mass media. It assumes that we suffer from too much government, too many taxes and too many controls of corporate enterprise Any ideology, once adopted by the mass media, will almost certainly turn around and infect the public that relies upon it for information. Only the most vigilant can resist this kind of consistent framing, story after story, day after day.
Oppositional frames from intellectual workers Those who teach at universities and colleges generate frames and frame-making ideologies that counter established frames including those of the mass media. Thus universities and colleges often serve as incubators for progressive movements. But many movements go no further. They are frequently abandoned by students who graduate and enter a variety of milieus where counter-movement frames prevail.
Resource Maintenance SMOs often face a dilemma when it comes to raising funds. If their membership is impoverished and they depend their membership for funds, they will wind up spending an inordinate amount of time and energy on fundraising for very little return. If, on the other hand, they look to external elites, they will face funding uncertainties and strings attached cooptation. External support usually tames a movement steering it towards the more conservative goals of elite funders. Nevertheless, most social movements eventually turn to elites — foundations, corporations, and rich philanthropists — for assistance in order to sustain themselves long enough to obtain substantial victories. Few funding organizations consider this a problem. One that does is the British Crossroads Fund where a board of both donors and activists makes decisions about grants.
Membership Maintenance Besides attracting resources and new recruits, a movement must strive to maintain the energies and loyalties of existing members. Like an effective small group, an effective SMO will focus on frame alignment, trying its best to ensure a fit between
